Harry Potter and the I'm-not-going-to-give-the-gam
by Ophelia6
Summary: End of title: (give-the-gam)e-away. As explained in header of chapter 1. Harry's 6th year and, um, things happen... Some Harry/Ginny and Draco/not-telling.
1. Chapter One

Harry Potter and the I'm-not-going-to-give-the-game-away 

Harry Potter and the I'm-not-going-to-give-the-game-away 

Ha! That spoiled it, didn't it? No ultra-revealing titles for me! (This may in part be because I'm not entirely sure of every detail of our journey… The precise location, yes; how we get there, no). The deal is that it's Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, and there are these people, and these things happen… You'll have to keep reading to find out more. AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (Maniacal laughter) There may be a bit of Harry/Ginny and certainly some Draco/someone BUT I WON'T TELL YOU WHO!!! Romance I suppose. Action, Drama, (if you could really call it that). Perhaps PG13 to be on the safe side, but I'm not really sure how the rating system works. 

Harry and all the rest of the characters except for the unnamed one, Hogwarts and so on are the perpetual property of J. K. Rowling; long-may-she-continue-to-feed-our-obsessions!!! 

Chapter One 

There were voices coming from the fire - it burnt a bright turquoise green, and figures emerged, whispering; their voices washing over the huddled form on the sofa, cocooned in dreams. 

"She looks exhausted, Albus; surely there's something we can - ""What are they doing to her out here? Those muggles, you can't -" 

"Should we - should we wake her, do you think?" 

Albus Dumbledore shook his head. 

"No; let her sleep." 

Professor Flitwick murmured something, and placed a warm, glowing bauble in the softly curled hand. 

Then they were gone. 

**** 

Harry Potter sighed with contentment as he slid out of the portrait-hole. It was good to be back at Hogwarts. The summer holidays had passed in one long flurry (ha!) of doing absolutely nothing. The first few weeks had constituted the usual business of staying out of his aunt and uncle's way while they pandered to his enormous cousin Dudley. The remaining time had been far more pleasurable, as he went to stay once more in "The Burrow," where his best friend Ron Weasley lived with what had used to be a gaggle of red-haired, freckled children and their red-haired, freckled parents. The Burrow had been oddly quiet, though - with Mr Weasley and Percy away on business, Bill and Charlie still in Egypt and Romania respectively, and the twins living in Hogsmeade where they were getting experience and contacts - "learning the trade," so to speak, at Zonko's Joke Shop - the only people in the rambling cottage had been comfortable Mrs Weasley, Ron, and Harry. And little Ginny Weasley, of course. Or rather, not so little Ginny Weasley. He wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but the blushing child who tended to put her elbow in the butter a lot around Harry had all of a sudden become a self-possessed young woman. If he hadn't suddenly sprung up over the past year, he probably would have found her quite intimidating. 

After the initial euphoria of being in such a warm and homely place - where Mrs Weasley, having already experienced it five times, understood perfectly the enormity of the two teenage boys' appetites, and Ron's bedroom was covered in animated Quidditch posters that reminded Harry not only of the wizarding world he loved, but also of his favourite occupation - the days had settled into a pleasant regularity. Harry, Ron, and Ginny de-gnomed the garden, tidied the attic for the residing ghoul (who, Mrs Weasley had decided, might feel more at home and make less noise in comfortable surroundings), played about on Harry's prized Firebolt in the paddock out the back, and talked endlessly. The boys arranged to meet their other best friend, Hermione Granger, in Diagon Alley two days before they went back to school; and four days beforehand, their school letters arrived with the morning owl. 

Dear Mr Potter, Harry read; 

I trust you are enjoying your summer holidays as a well-earned break following your O.W.L.s last term. The new school term will begin as usual on September 1st. A list of required textbooks is enclosed. 

We congratulate the following students - Hang on; this is new, thought Harry - on their nomination and prescription to the position of School Prefect… 

Harry didn't read the rest of the paragraph; he caught sight of the words "honour," "reputation," "others in our position…", but jumped straight to the list below, his heart thumping. 

Bones, Susan (Hufflepuff) 

Boot, Terry (Ravenclaw) 

Finch-Fletchley, Justin (Hufflepuff) 

Granger, Hermione (Gryffindor) - 

Ron and Harry looked up over their letters and grinned. 

"Big surprise," they said at the same time. 

The two boys continued to peruse their lists. 

Malfoy, Draco (Slytherin) 

Harry groaned. Ron looked sick. 

"Can you imagine the school with MALFOY as a prefect? Gryffindor won't stand a chance!" 

Nott, Jennifer (Slytherin) 

Patil, Padma (Ravenclaw) 

Potter, Harry (Gryffindor) 

That was the end of the list. Harry had to fight to keep the beam off his face when he saw Ron's reaction. The redhead had gone so pale he was almost green. Harry knew it must be a terrible disappointment to him - and it didn't help that his world-famous best friend had once again succeeded where he had failed. Harry tried to say something helpful. 

"Er - maybe they… could there be a mistake?" 

"Nup," said Ron, his voice strangely hollow. "I guess I'm just not good enough again." 

He went to throw his letter on the table and a second piece of parchment fluttered from underneath it. Something written there caught Harry's eye and he stooped to pick it up. 

Dear Mr Weasley, he read out loud. 

After considerable discussion with the school council we have instituted a new leadership position among the student body. We are exceptionally pleased, therefore, to announce that, largely thanks to your enthusiasm and team spirit, you will as of now be Gryffindor's first - 

"House captain," concluded Harry. 

"House - what?" Ron was even paler than before and was swaying alarmingly. "Here, let me read that." 

He snatched the parchment from Harry, read it through several times in disbelief, then slowly turned very pink on the tips of his ears. 

"Signed by Dumbledore, too," said Harry encouragingly. 

"I - … I - …" 

"I'd go and tell your mum, if I were you," and Harry pushed the stunned Ron out of the room and propelled him towards the kitchen, where Mrs Weasley was teaching her grater to recognise different kinds of cheese. 

If anything, the food for that last little bit of the holidays had been even better than usual, and Mrs Weasley couldn't see Ron and Harry without squeezing them both very tightly. Ron pretended to be embarrassed, but harry knew he secretly enjoyed it because in such a large family he rarely got so much attention. 

**** 

Harry smiled to remember it. One of the best things about being a Prefect, he reflected as he strolled through the darkened corridors, was a license to stay up and move about later than had been previously allowed. He was taking advantage of this newfound freedom to escape the noise of the Gryffindor common room, where Ron had organised a raucous game of Giant Twister as a get-to-know-you between the various years. 

He was just considering turning back and luxuriating in the thought of his cosy four-poster bed in the Gryffindor boys' sixth year dormitory, when he thought he heard something around the next corner. Reminding himself that he was allowed to be there, so there was probably very little that Filch or Mrs Norris could do to him, harry advanced cautiously. He poked his head around the corner, to discover a girl of about his own age peering anxiously at her surroundings. She had very bloodshot eyes, and Harry thought she must have been crying. She was in her pyjamas, and looked hopelessly lost. 

"Er," he said quietly, so as not to startle her. "Can I help you at all?" 

The girl looked up and smiled uncertainly. 

"Umm… are you lost?" After all, Harry reasoned, even Dumbledore openly confessed to not knowing the castle's entirety and he'd been at Hogwarts practically FOREVER. 

The girl's smile spread over her face. 

"If you could get me to the gargoyle on the second floor, that'd be great." 

"The one outside Dumbledore's office?" 

Something in the girl's expression flickered, but Harry couldn't recognise it. 

"Er… Yes, I think so." 

Harry guided the way through the dim corridors, finally stopping in front of one of the ugliest statues in the school. 

"Thank you - I can find my way from here." 

She smiled again, and touched Harry lightly and briefly on the arm as he bid her goodnight and went back down the hallway. When he turned at the stairwell to see which direction she went, the girl had vanished. 

Presuppositions welcomed, so long as you're reviewing! I know my formatting is probably a little wonky, but I haven't done this before. Stay tuned!!! 

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 0.6.7 -->


	2. Chapter Two

As you may have noticed, this bears basically no resemblance to things in light of (joyous!) OOTP. But never mind all that. Anyone who can give hints as to formatting and things is welcome to do so!  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
Harry re-entered the Gryffindor common room, where Ron was attempting to subtly shoo the younger students off to bed, while Hermione reversed some over-done stretching spells that the third and fourth years had attempted in order to maximise their chances of winning the Giant Twister match. The senior Gryffindors were idling and chatting in small groups scattered around the room, and Harry glanced around them before deciding to approach some of the girls by the fire: if anyone knew the identity of mysterious late-night wanderers, he reckoned, it'd have to be Pavarti Patil's socially keyed-in bunch of flibbertigibbets. Pavarti seemed to have taken her twin sister's elevation to the Prefecture in her stride. if the truth be told, she seemed to regard it positively unnatural that Padma took her grades more seriously than her boyfriends. Harry approached the giggling duo with caution.  
  
"Er. Pavarti?" Pavarti flicked back her long dark hair and, out of habit and a need to keep in practice, batted her eyelashes at him. "Um. you know most people around the school, don't you?" Lavender chimed in first. "We know EVERYONE, Harry. Why - seen a girl you like?" "We can put names to faces, faces to names," agreed Pavarti. "Er," said Harry, "it IS a girl -" "Ha!" exclaimed Lavender. "- but it's not because. I mean, she was just. I." Harry ground to a halt, but Pavarti broke in in a business-like fashion. "Height?" "Ah, quite tall." Harry looked around the room desperately before settling on ". about the same as Ginny Weasley." "Build?"  
  
"Umm. pretty sturdy."  
  
Lavender raised her eyebrows in surprise. She still couldn't believe that Harry's inquiry was the product of idle curiosity, and the last girl he had been reputed to like - nothing had ever been proven, though Lavender and Pavarti suspected that she'd kissed him on the last day of term the year before, when her family had moved to New Zealand - had been the slim and diminutive Cho Chang. "Hair colour?" she continued nevertheless. "Sort of middle brown, I suppose." "Eyes?" "Er. they might have been blue. Or maybe -" "Complexion?" Harry was fairly close to panicking amidst all this unexpected detail. Lavender took pity on him. "Well. was she pale? Freckled? Tanned?" Harry shook his head at each. "You've got to have SOME idea," she continued, exasperated. "Pink?" he hazarded. "Rosy, Harry, rosy," admonished Pavarti. She and Lavender looked at each other. "How old did you say she was?" "About our age. Young-looking, though - she could have been a fifth year, or even a fourth." "And where did you see her?" "Down the third floor corridor, near the east tower. But she seemed pretty lost - I don't think she came from around that way." There was a long pause. "Harry," said Lavender eventually. "I do believe you've stumped us." "Not the faintest idea," added Pavarti. "Well, I suppose you can't know EVERYBODY -" "Harry," said Lavender solemnly, "there are only about seventy people in each house. There are less than one hundred and fifty girls in this whole school. And there is no-one at all who matches that description who should be lost anywhere near that part of the castle." "And we should know," broke in Pavarti, seeing Harry's look of blatant disbelief, "because I'm always in. er." She started to giggle. Harry was a bit lost. "She means," said Lavender, "that with our extensive," (and she too giggled) "exploration of the social aspects of inter-house competitions, not to mention my esteemed colleague's familial connections, we're in a fairly good position to know where everyone belongs." The two were nearly hysterical for at least a minute, before Lavender admitted, "Of course, she could be new." This seemed sensible until Pavarti pointed out, " But we would have seen her being sorted. Anyway, there haven't been additions to other years before, have there?" Harry couldn't remember any, so he muttered his thanks and made excuses to escape, before heading up to bed with a chubby, smiling face in his head and absolutely no way of identifying it.  
  
The ensuing days developed into the same rhythm as previous years had: Harry, Ron, and Hermione started to memorise their timetables as they muddled between Transfiguration, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Divination (for Ron and Harry), Arithmancy (for Hermione), Care of Magical Creatures, and Potions. Much to Harry's disgust, the temper and overall personality of Professor Snape had NOT improved over the summer holidays. He remained as unsmiling, unfeeling, and unfair as ever, taking twenty-five points from Gryffindor in the very first lesson because, due to a clerical error, the entire class had bought the rong books for the year. Needless to say, Slytherin did not suffer the same fate.  
Added to this was the enormous load of homework everyone was suffering - Harry had thought that the end of the previous year had been bad, but it looked as though the next two would be demonic in nature - and Ron and Hermione's constant bickering, so it was really no surprise that Harry took more and more to wandering the corridors in the evenings after dinner, when the Gryffindor common room was full of the racket made by seventy exuberant young people. One night he got into an almost trance-like rhythm, the steady pad of his footsteps allowing his mind to traverse much farther than the bounds of the castle and its grounds. He was just enjoying an imaginary conversation with his godfather, Sirius Black, when a miaow startled him from his reverie. Harry stopped mid-step, and looked down at Mrs Norris, the odious cat of the even more odious Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry checked his watch hurriedly. 3 am! If he was found in the hallway this late, he could say goodbye to his prefecture - and his toenails, if Filch had anything to do with it - faster than he could say, "Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans." He backed away from the staring cat and began to run through the darkened corridors. Around corners, down staircases, past statues, portraits, and gently snoring suits of armour - at one stage he heard footsteps apart from his own and wheezing separate form his ragged breaths; he quickly ducked through a two-door classroom and emerged, panting, in a quiet hallway he hadn't seen before. There was no sound of Filch or Mrs Norris, so Harry leaned heavily against a nearby wall in an attempt to calm and quiet his breathing. As it turned out, his shortness of breath had one great advantage: it prevented him from crying out as the wall did a 180-degree rotation and left him in yet another room that he had never been near before.  
  
There were wooden floorboards which creaked a little as Harry stepped forward. There were rugs on the floor, and enchanted prints of muggle paintings on the walls. There were books and ornaments on the shelves, an open jewellery box with a real live fairy sleeping next to its pedestal, a white rocking chair with a teddy-bear on it. And a four-poster bed just like his own, with white and blue and purple hangings, pushed back and tied with ribbons. And a chubby girl asleep, with a little glowing ball in one hand, and a rag doll in the other.  
Harry went back to the wall and pushed - he could digest all of this when he was safely back in the Gryffindor tower - but nothing happened. He took out his wand: "Alohamora!" but still the wall remained solid. There was only one other option: he took the only door, half-open on his right. It led through other rooms - rooms with pots of flowers, rooms where old portraits were stacked and covered in dusty canvases - up a winding ramp, until there was a single door at the end. Harry pushed it open carefully, and stepped into a familiar room where headmasters dozed in portraits on the walls, and a phoenix was asleep on a perch with its head under its wing.  
It was Dumbledore's office. 


End file.
